Immigrant Mental Health with Dr. Norma Ramírez
Listen to Full Episode Here
About My Guest
Dr. Norma Ramírez, Ph.D (she/her/ella), is a bicultural-bilingual (Spanish-English) undocumented licensed psychologist in California and Nevada. She has served as the Clinical Director at an immigration non-profit where she provided free therapy and immigration mental health evaluations and is currently growing her private practice. Dr. Ramírez serves diverse populations from undocumented immigrant communities to first generation professionals to neurodivergent individuals to the LGBTQ community.
She is an advocate for the immigrant community, exemplified by her role as a plaintiff against the Trump Administration for illegally rescinding DACA in 2017 and recognition by the Biden and Harris Administration as a Latinx leader. Clinically, she provides direct services to clients, develops and implements behavioral health programming, provides mental health literacy workshops for minoritized populations, and provides workshops to educators, lawyers, and mental health professionals on improving services for undocumented communities. At the intersection of her spirituality, activism, and professional identities, her own marginalized identities inform how she approaches her work in all of these areas.
You can find Dr. Ramírez at her website: AllGoodThingsPs.com or on Instagram @AllGoodThingsPsychology
In This Episode
With extensive professional and lived experience with minoritized identities beyond race and ethnicity (e.g., neurodivergence, LGBTQ identifies, ability status), Dr. Ramírez brings a significant depth to this discussion on immigrant mental health. She offers insightful and honest reflections on the unique challenges we face when multiple minoritized identities overlap and how this may be experienced by various immigrant communities in the United States. For example, many children of first-generation immigrants (who hold various legal statuses) encounter high pressure, high stress situations from a young age that lead to "growing up too fast" in order to protect and care for their families. As such, the luxury of making mistakes does not exist and "failure" can come with devastating consequences that affect an entire community. Yet even for those who are able to meet these unrealistic, perfectionist standards, acceptance or inclusion never seems to come. This can be especially true for those who are undocumented, leaving them in a perpetual lose-lose situation.
Dr. Ramírez shares how belief systems rooted in colonialism lead to removing the humanity of people different from ourselves and assigning moral judgment based on demographics. These beliefs can result in people with minoritized identities, like immigrants, becoming socialized to believe that they are not deserving of good things in life. Who is allowed to experience beauty, social connection, hope, or safety?
Dr. Ramírez reminds us that all humans are deserving of good things--both the oppressors and the oppressed, because we each contain both identities within us. The complicated reality that we all contain good and bad within us, is a truth she addresses actively throughout her life and career. It is a mission she carries with her in her clinical work, educational commitments, and advocacy efforts. Dr. Ramírez is someone who truly embodies her work and mission, compassionately inviting others to learn with and benefit from her experiences.
Finally, Dr. Ramírez shares what it was like to simultaneously complete her clinical training, write a PhD dissertation, and sue the US Government. Dr. Ramírez reflects on what it is to stop striving for acceptance from a systemic structure that will never provide it--maybe those determined to see failure in everything you do, should not be the ones defining failure for you.
